There were two reasons for Mass being celebrated at Holy Spirit church in City Beach on Friday June 21: one, to celebrate the feast day of the founder of Opus Dei, St Josemaria Escriva; the second, to celebrate the arrival of Opus Dei in Australia 50 years ago. Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown would be horrified.
Together with friends and families, members and cooperators of Opus Dei came together with a choir formed specially for the occasion. Fr Anthony Bernal, a Melbourne-based parish priest of Opus Dei’s Prelature of the Holy Cross was the main celebrant, assisted by Perth Dominican, Fr Anthony van Dyke OP.
Fr Anthony visits Perth monthly to hold evenings of recollection for men and women.
After Mass, supper was served in the parish hall while large numbers of children scooted between the tables as families and older generations caught up with one another; a great evening was had by all.
While in Rome for the Second Vatican Council, Sydney Cardinal James Gilroy asked the-then Msgr Josemaria Escriva if members of Opus Dei would be able to staff a Catholic residential college planned for the University of New South Wales.
Not long after, a small centre of Opus Dei opened in 1963 in Sydney.
Warrane College, the residential college for nearly 200 men opened in 1970. A college for women, Creston College, also opened the same year.
Half a century after arriving in Australia Opus Deis’ membership heartland is still in Sydney, but the Prelature – the only one of its kind in the Church – has spread around the country and across the Tasman.
A number of other Opus Dei centres in Sydney offer educational and spiritual help for students and professional people of all ages and backgrounds, including Kenthurst Study Centre, the conference centre at which Pope Benedict XVI stayed during World Youth Day in 2008.
There are also centres in Melbourne, Auckland and Hamilton in New Zealand, as well as regular spiritual activities in Perth, Brisbane, Hobart, Newcastle, Canberra, and Wellington, New Zealand.